IT’S BEEN 50 years since the starship Enterprise
first zoomed into our collective consciousness
when the original Star Trek, created by writer-producer Gene Roddenberry, beamed onto
television screens. Since then, it has launched six
additional series (including the soon-to-pre-miere Star Trek: Discovery) and 13 motion pictures. The latest, Star Trek Beyond, was directed
by Justin Lin, previously known for three of the

Fast and Furious films.

THE COSTCO CONNECTION: What wasyour initial reaction when you were asked todirect the film?

JUSTIN LIN: The cast and the show were very
much a part of my family. My parents had a
fish and chips restaurant, and they worked
364 days a year, and they would close shop at
9 p.m. We had dinner at 10, and Star Trek
came on at 11, so from [ages] 8 to 18 that was
my time with my family, exploring the universe with the crew of Enterprise. … I was very
honored to be asked, but I also knew that the
task was, I’d have to come up with an idea,
work with [writers] Simon [Pegg] and Doug
[Jung] to come up with an idea and be shooting in six months, which is kind of unheard of.
So it was something that I felt was a mission
worth taking, because it really was a very personal choice for me.

CC: As such a personal choice, what wereyour concerns?

JL: I wanted to make sure that we really preserved the essence of what made Star Trek great.

For people who love Star Trek, this would be,

especially on the 50th anniversary, a great way to kind of
remind everybody why there’s
so much passion for this franchise. But at the same time I wanted to make a
movie where, anybody watching it for the very
first time, they’re going to build this emotional
connection with these characters and with this
franchise. It’s my job to make sure that we can,
hopefully, grow our community, because I think

Star Trek is for everybody globally.

CC: One of the most impressive aspects of the
new series of films is the way this new cast captured the essence of the original cast and yet
made the characters their own. How do you
maintain those performances as a director?
JL: What J.J. [Abrams] did in the ’09 reboot
that, for me as a fan, was so great, was that he
basically created a new timeline, so we’re taking these great characters that we’ve known
our whole lives, but yet we’re going to be experiencing all of these journeys with them for
the very first time. That was something that I
had so much fun doing on set, whether it was
with Karl Urban [McCoy] or [the late] Anton
[Yelchin; Chekov] or anybody. There was so
much love for these characters, and I felt like
it was our job to make sure that we present the
right obstacles for them to overcome.

CC: As a director, what was the most difficultpart of your job with the film?

JL: Cutting things down, because there were somany ideas in my head. They’ve been thereprobably since I was 8 years old, so at certainpoints I remember sitting there with Simonand Doug and writing. Our script was way toolong. It was an embarrassment of riches, todecide what goes in, what gets cut out, whatgets more [implied]. Those are the hardestdecisions, because I think if we had everything,blue-sky scenario, we probably could havemade two movies with the ideas that we had.

CC:Why didn’t you? It wouldn’t be the firsttime a studio has done that.

JL: It was a commitment to the fans to make
sure that we had this film out on the 50th
anniversary. To be honest, I think that if we
didn’t have that deadline, we probably would
have just kept shooting, because it was so
much fun. And I don’t think anybody would
have objected. C

Director Justin Lin helmsStar Trek Beyond

THE COSTCO CONNECTION

Star Trek Beyond is available at all Costco
warehouses, along with other home entertainment titles, such as Game of Thrones:
Season 6 and Finding Dory. Suicide Squad,
The Secret Life of Pets and Jason Bourne
will be available in December.